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Nightfall, blanketed by the thinly veiled moonlight that shone through the curtain drawn windows reflected blue and white hues as A lay in her armchair, surrounded by papers and all sorts of documents illegible to any who would have not known where she was from.
A flicked her pen back and forth, contemplating as the unfinished paper on her desk lay out of her mind, ignored for who knows how long. Procrastination was not a common trait of hers, but rather, she had been quite disconnected as of late.
A wry smile pulled at her pale, tear streaked face, like a worn, old and fractured porcelain doll.
“I wanted to see him smile,” she whispered, like a silent prayer to be heard only by her and whoever was watching above.
“To rejoice, to hold his head high, to laugh from the bottom of his heart.”
…Yet delusional dreams will always, always be but flights of fancy.
What little respite A earned, she would not have reason to spend it with those she loved, as those people were not as she always knew them to be. No, she herself was not as she was before. To smile like she once did was but a pipe dream; self deception and empty words meant to console herself and herself only.
Her mind flashed back to that morning, when she stood atop the podium and exclaimed in all her glory and attention, beckoning to the crowd and reciting lines she wrote half-heartedly just the day before.
“Cast away your sorrows, as fleeting moments are not permanent,” she said, as music played and lured the masses into a trance, ostentatious ceremony spreading across the streets like stars to the sky.
“Lift your glasses in celebration, or lift you hands in lieu, for today is-“
-a day she most certainly did not want to remember.
After the ceremony, A collapsed as soon as she stepped through the door to the conference room. Straight into Helios no less.
A grimaced at the thought, clutching her head as she decided to throw herself under the unmade bed covers.
It was quite a long time since Helios and she had met. Back then, conditions were far from desireable… yet it was his voice, calm and steady and grounding that she so treasured throughout the years.
“Tell me what you want, what you like. It’s ok, I’m just curious.”
It was no understatement to say Helios was a kind man; he always put others first, walking in front yet never did he not stop to extend his hand to A, to those who could not walk on their own.
They were always together, A crying and laughing and smiling as she slowly put the fallen pieces together, fragments that fell from her broken heart, lighting up the dullness in her eyes. The stained glass that painted a picturesque landscape, tapestries of silver and gold threading meant to hide cracked, bloodstained walls. The feelings she would never recover, but still desperately tried to replace. No, to remember. To experience one more time.
It was the saddest things, words of comfort that broke her more than anything.
“If you fall, I’ll catch you. I’ll save you no matter what anyone else says.”
Perhaps it had not been said, but A always thought one thing;
Helios saved her from the very day he placed his hand on her head, and smiled so, so softly. It hurt; painfully, agonisingly, unbearably.
“I hate this,” A said, clutching her pillow as she curled up under the covers.
“Why couldn’t I just be a normal person…?”
Fleeting were people’s lives, and Helios as no exception. A’s words, words that fell from sorrowful lips, were by no means undeniable. Because they were the truth. One that she had so loathed since the beginning of time.
“I’ll do whatever the hell I want, consequences be damned,” A muttered under her breath.
“But I will never lose anyone again.”